| Zusammenfassung: | Before the coming of the Europeans, Nigerian ethnic groups had a way of relating with one another taking into consideration the importance of military victory in inter-group relations. Military alliance was one of these. This paper examines the objectives, collapse and the impact on inter-group relations of the defeat of the allied powers. Oyo and Borgu were both military powers before the emergence of Ilorin (Ilorin was formerly a military outpost of Oyo). The emergence not only led to a change in power structure, in which Oyo was brought under Ilorin, Borgu power was also threatened at the same time. It was this reason that led to the formation of the military alliance between Oyo and Borgu. However, the alliance could not achieve its objectives which was to check the growing power of Ilorin. The latter defeated the combined forces of Oyo and Borgu. This victory further encouraged the Ilorin jihadists to penetrate deeply into Oyo territority, during which many former vassal states of Oyo were conquered. Secondly, the defeat led to the final evacuation of the Oyo capital city thereby creating a lot of demographic problems in the region. Finally, the military alliance had negative impact on inter-group relations. The defeat created mutual suspicion and outright hostility between Borgu and territories under Oyo.
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